


Repeating History

by mneiai



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aerea Targeryan is a warning, Body Horror, Book: Fire and Blood, Dark, F/M, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, Not Beta Read, Valyria, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 21:17:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18599587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mneiai/pseuds/mneiai
Summary: Daenerys and Jon travel to Valyria. Nothing is right again.





	Repeating History

**Author's Note:**

> If you know anything about Aerea Targeryan you can guess at the body horror warning. Otherwise, uh, just be warned.
> 
> This was going to be part of my drabble collection but then it got long and also it's hard to warn for stuff in drabble collections and this needed the warnings.

It had taken all of his effort to convince Rhaegal to land and as soon as Jon dismounted he slumped to the ground, breathing hard, grimacing at the way the very air burned his lungs. The sky was blocked out completely, but somehow it was still light around them, a glow coming from the very stones they rested upon. 

Daenerys dismounted with more energy, seeming to soak up the heat and the wrongness and come out all the better for it. 

Neither of them paid it much mind when their dragons didn't return, assuming they were off exploring in their own way.

***

The game was all wrong, the plant life was all wrong, even the water, when boiled and poured through the filter Marwyn had provided of charcoal and odd rocks and sea sponge, still tasted wrong. He wanted to turn back, but Daenerys wouldn't hear of it. This was their ancestral home. She'd brought dragons back into the world, they were meant to be here.

He felt weary from the heat, from the lack of good food, from the stinging bugs that wouldn't leave them alone, but she laughed it off. She had him lie with her on their bedding, her body moving over his, the glow of the place seeming to echo in her skin.

***

The heat was nearly unbearable, even Daenerys, used to far worse than Jon, was weakening the longer it went on. They stumbled from ruin to ruin, Jon barely able to hunt, Daenerys often not bothering to dig for tubers or the large bugs they'd taken to eating raw just to fill their stomachs, unable to fathom lighting a fire and bringing more heat near. 

At least he'd gotten used to the taste of the water, though it did nothing to cool him off. If anything, it just made him feel hotter.

***

Daenerys clung to him whenever she could, saying he was the only thing that brought relief. He felt feverish, just like she was, but she claimed he was cold, ice cold, against her skin.

***

They weren't alone. There were other things out there, not animals. Or, no more animals than they were. They hid wherever they could, taking refuge in the burnt out, fallen buildings that could have once been palaces. That could have once been the seat of their family. 

Daenerys no longer had the will to care. She just wanted to leave. This, she said, had been a trap. They'd had enemies who wanted them to die here. They couldn't let them win.

***

Their family was the one that had _escaped_ the Doom. They could not let this kill them.

***

The other beings had hunting parties, Jon knew it. He could feel their attention drawing ever closer. They could not stop.

They stumbled on, the chittering of the odd, many-limbed lizards around them keeping him going. In the distance, great shapes moved in the clouds. Beckoning.

He did not know how long they'd been walking. He felt as though he had not seen the sky in years, the ever gentle glow around them the only light. He had forgotten, even, what darkness felt like.

***

They stayed a time in what was an armory, once, Jon strapping armor onto his body, strapping swords and knives and a spear, a mace at his hip, anything he could wear. Maybe once it would have been to bring it all back, to return with his proof and his treasures, but now it was from jittery fear of what lurked outside.

He took a giant shield and layered it with dragon skin, setting Daenerys upon it--she felt so small, so fragile in his arms, her skin was red from the heat, a shocking contrast against his, which only seemed to have gotten paler.

Ropes hadn't survived, but there were chains--in slave pits, in dragon pits, he tried not to think too deeply of their history. This could have been their family's home. 

He fastened the chains to the shield, wrapped them around his waist, and started moving again, pulling Daenerys behind him.

***

 _If I look back,_ he heard echoing in his head, in Dany's old voice--powerful, healthy, so sure, _I am lost._

***

The things watched him. They watched Daenerys, too, but not in the way they watched him. Dany was prey, Dany was easy food in the desolate wasteland they all now shared.

Jon was something else. 

The heat had passed through him. He'd spent so long with it he hadn't noticed when it had gotten worse, when he'd spent days delirious, laying next to Daenerys and talking nonsense riddles in the Old Tongue as if fluent.

Then he'd dreamed of white and white and blue, bright burning blue looking straight into him. Into his heart. Into his soul.

And he'd awoken with the heat once more at bay.

***

Drogon returned, finally, finally. He, too, looked worse for wear. 

Getting Daenerys onto his back was near impossible, she was so weak, so thin, her skin burning his hands and the things, the moving things beneath it, making it so hard for him to hold on. When she could move through her pain, she would rest her hand over her stomach, rubbing it gently, and rasp words in High Valyrian of how great their future would be.

***

They landed in King's Landing. He could barely make it out, squinting against the too-bright evening sun.

Panicked, desperate voices bombarding him after so long in the near-silence of their homeland.

They took Daenerys, Marwyn's dawning horror making Jon scream and move at him, held back by two, then four, then six guards piled upon his body.

 _What did you know?!_ he had demanded. _What did you not tell us?!_

Except he had. He'd told Daenerys. Warned her. 

She was the one that had kept it from Jon, knowing he'd say no, find some way to stop her from going.

She was the Mother of Dragons, Valyria was her birthright.

***

He watched her die, the whole room heated by her tiny body, but ice still settled deep inside of him. 

He watched the heat burst her eyes, the mess melting down her cheeks. 

He watched the things that he'd felt growing inside of her burst out, slithering over the cooked meat of her corpse.

Marwyn said the cold could kill them, so he carefully placed them in heated glass containers. 

Even Sarella couldn't watch that, but Jon did, Jon made himself watch, feeling less and less as it went on.

***

He'd been stripped of his weapons at some point, of his armor, of the dragon skin scraps he'd worn beneath it as their clothing frayed into nothingness.

Everyone asked. Some more bluntly than others.

He only spoke of it to Marwyn, as he stared at the heated containers, the wiggling shapes within growing ever larger under the maester's attentions.

He felt naked, and alone, and so, so cold.


End file.
